Fear of losing?

Destroy the fear!

For the past 2 days I have been caught off guard by this fever. What’s the best time pass that one can rely up on, when u are bedridden? Undoubtedly, it's the books! I began reading 'Wings of Fire', an autobiography of Dr. APJ Abdul kalam. An awesome book!!! I recommend everyone one of you out there, to read it at least once.

I had mentioned about our dept fest called e-utsav in my previous blog entry. I had hosted a game show called Bluff Master, a slight variant of the game show that used to be aired on star one. I had put up a question in that: 'what are the top 10 things that people fear most?’ One of the answers I got was 'Fear of Losing'. After all the show was over, I gave this particular answer a serious thought! Today I began to relate that answer with few of the incidents in my life.

Those were the days, when I used to see my brother ride on his bicycle. I used to fancy myself riding that someday, with the same excellence and control as my brother. I still remember how this very fear of losing, the fear of failing to ride it successfully prevented me from giving it a try. Finally one day I garnered all the courage to give it a try. I borrowed my neighbor’s (apoorv) cycle and gave it my first ever test ride! What happened? I did get my knee badly bruised!!! But that hardly mattered to me bcoz, I had won over the fear of having not been able to give cycling a try! It was my first ever tryst with overcoming the fear of losing!

When I joined school, I had this fear of not being able to take the initiative in any of the events that were held. I used to take part in debate, elocution with endless zeal. I remember myself of having spoken quite passionately about Raja ram mohan roy, debated on 'Whether science is menace to humanity?' or even the "Impact of western culture on Indian society', during the CCA sessions. It was all okies. But what used to irk me was, I never used to take charge of any event as a leader. Be it the 'captaincy' of any 'house' or any sport. I simply was never trusted to be worthy enough to shoulder such a responsibility! All this used to make me feel diffident and god alone knows how I longed to get out this place, where people had a gestated mentality. I feel, a mistrust in anyone is never gonna get the best out him/her. By the time I was about to pack my luggage and bid farewell to my school/college, I was almost sure that it wasn't my fault that I didn’t get to shoulder any important responsibility. It was just that the folks there never really gave me one.

When I joined engineering, I had some clear cut goals in my mind and some real good points to prove to myself and to the world around me. What’s the best thing that can happen to a person, who is in search of an opportunity to prove himself? Just drop him in a place where no one knows him. I loved this feeling of being in an open arena. At least now I had been bestowed with a golden opportunity to 'write my own script'. I knew that people here were not biased about me and would only judge me purely on my caliber. No matter how hard I tried to reassure that it was all a new ball game and I was a new player, the impact of 'Loser' tagged in bold, haunted me badly. It was hard for me get over this feeling for nearly an year. I had not shouldered any big responsibility as such till then. When I was in search of a great platform to prove my worth and enhance my skill set, the best thing that happened to me was, me becoming a representative of E&C forum. Boy! it was the turning point of my life. It exposed me to some of the best talents in E&C. I got an opportunity to interact with my peers, and also took me closer to my faculty as well. For the first time, I was sheltering a feeling of hope and confidence. I was getting over this whole TAG of LOSER! People around me had begun to trust me. I was offered with responsibilities I thought I could have handled long back! Amidst all this, there were numerous occasions where people have mocked at me and doubted my roles as a forum rep. What was that one fear that came along with the joy of finding such an awesome platform to flourish? It was the challenge to strike a balance between my academics and the forum activities. Initially I had repented several times and struggled hard in this whole balancing act. But as the time progressed, I did realize that more the responsibilities I shouldered, the better did I manage to utilize my time. The frustration was at its epitome when the Campus recruitments were around! When all my friends were busy slogging and preparing for campus, I was as usual involved with the forum stuff. My friends, used to question me about how I found time for all this stuff? All I managed to do was to keep mum, coz I too was wondering how. But today as I see it, I find the answer. Slowly but subtly, I had won over this fear that prevented a lot of my friends from taking up the job of a forum rep. The very fear, of not being able to strike a balance between their academics and co-curriculars.

These were just a few fears that I managed to collate from my past experience in life. I am sure I will be challenged to overcome many such fears in future as well. But, come what may, I strongly believe that it is this very fear that at some point triggers you to beat it!!!

One more thought, that I would like all of you to ponder over. Is it always about winning or losing? Is it always about Heroes and Zeros? What about those who shell out all their energy, time and resource into something and finally the damn thing doesn't work? Are they to be tagged as losers? Are they zeros?

PS: Talking of fears, I remember a quote; 'The fear of losing may take the joy out of winning!'. Remember that adversities always provide you with opportunities of retrospection. So come out this whole shell of fear and fire this fear off!!!

~IT's My Life